You can't "work your way to the top" in capitalism.

It depends on where you live in America as to how much you'll need to earn in order to have just the things you need in order to live. An example is here in Key West , Florida, the average prices for homes is over 400,000.00 so you'd need an income of over 15,000.00 a year just to cover the mortgage and insurance payments at todays interest rates. Then all of the other things that keep you alive which will add another 18,000.00 a year minimum, that's 33,000.00 minimum just to keep alive here. If you'd rent the average prices are over 800.00 per month so you'd save some there. But then you have car insurance, property insurance car maintenance any car payments, gas, food, entertainment ,clothing,and life insurance to buy also. All in all you'd need at least 30,000.00 to live here renting.That is to just live, nothing out of the ordinary like vacations, boats, extra car or motorcycle.

In New York everything is much higher so you'd need to double that to get by minimally. Out in the country, Iowa say, you'd need allot less say about what you earn there. But that is why Americans are in debt because they spend twice as much as they earn at least and some spend 3 or 4 times their earnings just to buy things they want but don't really need.

The 300,000.00 a doctor earns can get allot of tax wright offs or deferments if the accountants know what they are doing to help the doctor and the doctor listens to the accountants advice. I know of a doctor who only pays about 10 percent to the government due to tax shelters that he has his monies invested in.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

For Michael (et. al.) ....... "Oyster Transformation" and University Tenure:

The newly formed Ph.D. becoming a "post-doc" at the start of an academic career is like a newly hatched oyster. Not many know, but in this post-egg stage, the oyster is quite "fish-like." It swims around using its brain to evaluate various places to settle down, like the post-doc spending a year at some university to evaluate it, before moving on to look at conditions in another.

Eventually, both select some spot to set down in what they hope will be permanent attachment in a solid spot (rock or University).
Then they work hard, building a secure attachment (make water-proof glue or publish many papers). When they have established themselves with some protection (hard shell or gotten tenure) there really is no longer any necessity for their brain. In the case of the oyster, it is consumed for its energy / nutrient value, but in many tenured professors it just atrophies from lack of use and is wasted. (Perhaps the oyster is more clever?)

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Very common example of the hidden "central planning" that distortes the US economy. It is achieved with few realizing it has great impact on many things produced, especially the mix of housing constructed and crop prices - the two items of greatest importance to Joe American. (This ill-thought-out* "central planning" has played a large role in creating the "suburban infrastructure" that will be increasingly difficult to support in the era of high cost energy.)

This form of "central planning," mainly hidden in IRS and Dept. of Agriculture subsidies and planting rules etc. is at least as effective in distroting the economy as that of the old USSR, which could be by-passed with well placed bribes or simply was not enforced.
---------------------------------
*Almost entirely written into law to serve special interest group, instead of society as a whole. (Usually their lobbist actually write the legislation!) See:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...l=9&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/29/60minutes/main2625305.shtml

First posted by OkIwillgonow at:
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1448281&postcount=1

For example of "central planning" to benefit special interest group forced on the FDA. (Almost all US agencies work for these groups, not Joe American, but many public servents would rather work for Joe, but the laws constrain what they can do.)

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

The correct analogy you are looking for is tunicate! They move around like and resemble a tadpole when they are young, and then they find a nice spot on some rock, become sessile, develop a huge sack for filter feeding, and more importantly, they lose their brain.

 

I do not see any significaznt improvement in calling them "tadpole like" instead of "fish-like", for the average reader. Perhaps, however I should have mentioned the analogy of the oyster's "huge sack for filter feeding."
In the tenured professor's case, we call the filler feeding system "graduate students." Their research is usually published with their professor's name on it also to feed his reputation, despite his no longer functiong brain.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Dont oysters produce pearls?

 

because fish hardly ever regress in a brain-like state. The only one I know of is the male version of particular species which regresses so much that it hardly can be recognized as a fish. It embeds itself in the female as a parasite.

The tunicates start mobile and smart and change into an adult form that is sessile and brainless.

In fact, originally they were not recognised as being chordates at all. Till one lonely researcher discovered the larval stage which looks very much like it is our cousin.

sorry if you are still pissed about wasting 40 years of your life thinking on free will, but that is not my fault.

 

That is totaly irrelivant as I was not making any general comments about fish.

I was only trying to quickly inform (>95%) of the population that does not know that there is a stage in the oyster's life when it swims around looking for spot to settle down in. Instead of all this non-sense from you, please use your time to defend you statement (which I have now several times chalanged) that the brain's structural organization dominates the lower level processes and thus is adequate for undestanding brain function without considering them. (words to that effect, not an exact quote) in the example I challenged you with:

Parkinson disease is due to a defect at the neuro-transmitter level, not the structural level (caused by inadequate production of dopamine, especially in the cerebellum). The cerebellum of a Parkinson victum, who can not even walk, is STRUCTURALY IDENTICAL* to that of "gold metal gymnasts"

I assume by "structural level" we both mean only:
(1) The "gross stucture" (things easily seen by the human eye, like the brain's "lobes" and the sulci separating them)
Plus
(2) The "microscopic sturcture" (things like the details of the branching in the dendritic tree and to which other nerves the axon make synaptic connections)

-------
*strictly speaking only the gross stucture is "identical." The "micro-structure" is more correctly descibed as quite like what it was prior to developing Parlkinson's disease. The point is clear - You can not describe the cause of Parkinson disease at the structural level, and you are just too stuborn to admit you were wrong.

BTW, I am not "pissed off" about the time spent think about "free will" and how it could be compatible with physic. I greatly enjoy thinking about difficutlt problems.** If anything, I am pissed off by the time I wasted, watching movies etc, instead of doing so. (At least I have never watched sport games, with one exception - While at Cornell did take a girl to one football game, but it was her, not the game, I mainly looked at.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

)

------
**Why I became interested in deeply understanding human vision and in the year I was granted a full-pay sebatical, studied in the cognitive science department of JHU to learn what is the accepted POV, became a "crackpot" by inventing an alternative, in which I ACCIDENTLY found a solution to my old "free will" problem.

 

Riiiiiight. I'm not sure why you're so intent on equating the incentives codified in the tax code to Communist-style central planning, but it's absurd on its face.

 

it all depends on how much debt you take on yourself.

$150,000 is much more than the avg. family income (at least in Canada).
my parents have been making a combined amount of $90,000 (before tax) for years, and we have a town house, 2 cars, and 2 kids that are going (went) through university.

the stats re: new biznesses failing, that's true. i think in Canada it's like 4 out of 5 new businesses won't last through their first 1-2 years. well fuck, dont start a business if you don't know what you're doing.
as for getting jobs, it's about knowing people on the inside. from my perspective, that's the only hinderance. if you gots the skills, and you know someone who works in the company, you can have him hand your resume to the HR manager. that's how 80% of the ppl i know got their post-graduation jobs.

and in the US the situation is really great. you guys get higher pay than here in Canada, and your products are cheaper too. (and now that the Greenback has reached parity with the Loony you'll get even more biz coming your way).

Marx55, you paint a bleak picture, but it's not as bad as you think. it's not a mystery why most of the refugees of the world want to come to the US. if it's not for their love of American version of "freedom", then it's for the amazing financial quality of life.

 

I managed to do pretty well for myself, I went from lower middle or upper lower class to the top 5% of income earners (and still rising). I don't know that you coudl say that it was all "work" that got me here, as natural inclinations and talents played a role. I can confirm that there's no glass ceiling holding people down. If you have drive and talent and you avoid pitfalls, people are happy to welcome you in the higher tax brackets.

 

Have you bought chicken or milk lately? I bet you paid more than a free market price due to the centrally planned / subsidized program of diverting corn into alcohol production.

How about your decision to rent or buy - did not the deductability of the mortgage influence it?

How about the tax break on hybrid cars - not important factor, centrally planned, to shape the automoble market? If that is not a strong one yet, then the fact US gasoline taxes are about half those in Europe gave the US couple of decades of SUVs etc.

The list goes, on and on. What is "absurd" is you can not see this is "central planning in disguise"!

I will admit it often is produced for and by special interest groups (Such a big oil's depletion allowancy and import duties only on non-oil fuel sources, etc.) but this does not make it escape the label of "central planning." - That only makes it "central planning" for the benefit of the special interest group, instead of Joe American. Anyway you want to look at it is central interference in the operation of the economy as all the differential taxation of various different types of income is.

US's central planning is more efficient than the USSR's was. They tried to have buerocrates issue factory production orders etc. US just passes complex tax laws, sets up farm programs subsidies, import duties, etc. which are more effective at modualtion the economy than trying to direct it (that does not work nearly as well) I.e. US IMPLEMENTATION of its central planning is better, but it is still "central planning" and usually NOT for Joe American's benefit.

Yea! yea! kept my capital gains in low low tax rate.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

(My decision on what to sell at profit and When is with at least one eye on when I will trip the Alternate gains minium - miss calculated last year and it bit me.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

:bawl:

by edit: Latest example (less than an hour old!):
" The House Ways and Means Committee, seeking revenue to help homeowners in foreclosure, unanimously approved higher taxes on the sale of vacation homes. ... harder for people who sell their second homes to exclude as much as $500,000 in profit from capital-gains taxes. The provision would raise $2 billion in additional taxes over the next decade, according to an estimate by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. ..."
PS Cancelling this piece of special interest tax law will mainly hurt the rich - would never have passed (or even gotten to the vote) if the Rebublicans were still in control of Congress - GWB can still veto it so no need to rush out and sell your second home.

FROM:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3XP6Mauc16M&refer=home

 

Nobody's denying that the tax codes and other government regulations result in incentives that people do respond to. This does not, however, amount to a centrally planned economy. There is no office full of beaurocrats deciding what's going to be produced, how much it's going to be sold for, how much each person is going to get paid, etc. If you're going to abuse the term "central planning" to apply to the economy with the *least* amount of central planning in the world, then the term will not have any meaning. You could just as well argue that the world's skinniest man is actually fat, since he stills weighs more than 0 lbs.

 

I recognize "central directed," like the old USSR was as a sub division of "central planning" distinguished as you said above in its method of implementation. I even mentioned "beaurocrates issuing factory production orders" and commented that this was not the most efficient form of central palnning. For me that is not the only way central planning can be implementated.

US has central planning implemented by REGULATION and differential DETAILED TAXATION. All governments must collect taxes, but contray to your POV, I suspect the tax laws of the US are among the most convoluted set of special cases that man has ever created and this comnplexity neccesitate armies of lawyers. These lawyers are more highly specialized than doctors! (BTW, guided by the principle "income is income" {not many different "flavors of income" each with different tax rates, etc.} I could write a progressive tax code on a 3by5 card!)

I will not try to describe the legal sub divisions in detail but note it starts with the criminal / civil split. I illustrate by jumping way down the lawyer "specialization tree" structure: Way out to a "twig" of "patent lawyer branch" (after that splits up into "limbs" called "copy rights" vs "componds" (separate organic and inorganic divisions, of course) vs. "processes" lawyers). One of the leaves on this "twig" is the lawyers who limit their practice to arguing that their client X's complex organic compond should be allowed a patent as the distribution of the sugars on X's protein molecule is not exactly the same as the opponent lawyer's client Y's otherwise identical protein. If you think I kidd you, visit:
www.momentapharma.com
I do not own any stock in them, but they are building a whole company with drug lawyers highly knowledgable about the variation of sugar on protein structures. I think the basic idea is to patent lots of existing protein drugs with slightly differ locations of the attached sugar molecules! (Avoid the huge research expense etc. and offer effectively the same drug cheaper.)
One company I do own shares of is Barr - a large generic drug maker (with some of it own pattented compounds, especially in the area of contraception etc.) I bought into them because they are so good at breaking drug patents.

SUMMARY: What I am trying to show is that the complex regulatory and tax structure the US has established DOMINATES what US businesses do. (I could have focused on the protective walls or the subsides etc. that are also controlling US economic activity.) The idea that US has a "free market" is a popular fiction.

 

There is, in several areas - agriculture being one that is especially obvious.

Instead of positive commands, they deal in manipulation of penalites and rewards. That's the American way.

When Cheney met with several important players in the energy industry - we are still not allowed to know who - how would you describe that if not as central planning?

 

Okay, but this is not what everyone else understands the term "central planning" to mean. It's considered synonymous with the term "command economy," and is used to refer to Soviet-style economic management (which is very much out of fashion nowadays, outside of Cuba and North Korea). The United States (and pretty much every other country in the world) are known as "mixed economies" which combine elements of free markets with elements of central planning. There are no true "market economies" in the strict sense of the term; when people say that their country has a free market economy, it's understood to mean that they have a mixed economy that lies closer to the free-market ideal than to the central planning model. Everyone knows this (or should), so I'm not sure what you think you're accomplishing by torturing the term "central planning" here. Outside of perhaps a few places like Singapore, there are no economies that lie closer to the free-market ideal than the United States. Call it "centrally planned" if you like, but the fact remains that it is *less* centrally planned than pretty much every other country out there.

 

I think this claim is well destroyed by my discusion of the complexity of the US tax code (and somewhat destroyed by iceaura's noting that in fact the Dept. of Agriculture has an army of inspectors, out menasuring the fields to make sure the farmer is planting his ALLOWED acreage in the ALLOWED crop, etc.)

I ask you: Can you name any other country, outside ot the few still trying to run central planned economies by the inefficient "directed by beaurocrates issuing factory orders" implementation approach, that is subjected to as detailed level of central control as that of the US? (via extremely complex tax structure, which dominates or at least strongly influences all the economic decisions its people and corportations make)?

I am not sure you are correct here as the words "central planning" are self explanning and clear, but if you are, it only shows how extensive the "mind control" of the public is/ I.e. something straight out of 1984 like "keep the peace" means "make war" etc. Call me old fashion, if you like but to me "central planning" means "planned control from the center" still, reguardless of the means used to achieve it. (direct production orders, complex tax laws, very detailed regulations, early childhood "brainwashing," etc. are all possible means in actual use.)

 

Yes: pretty much all of them. Russia, Europe, China and Brazil would all be excellent examples. For further details, check out the following indices, which measure how close each country is to the laissez-faire free market ideal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom

Notice how the United States scores very high on both indices.

While you're at it, go read these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_economy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_economies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_economy

"Planned economy (also known as a command economy, centrally planned economy, or command and control economy) is an economic system in which the state or government controls of manufacture and formulates all decisions about their use and about the distribution of income."

"A mixed economy is an economic system that incorporates the characteristics of several different economic systems. This usually means an economy that contains both private-owned and state-owned enterprises or that combines elements of capitalism and socialism, or a mix of market economy and command economy characteristics.

There is not one single definition for a mixed economy, but relevant aspects include: a degree of private economic freedom (including privately owned industry) intermingled with centralized economic planning (which may include intervention for environmentalism and social welfare, or state ownership of some of means of production).

For some states, there is not a consensus on whether they are capitalist, socialist, or mixed economies. Economies in states ranging from the United States to Cuba have been termed mixed economies."

 

Again there is a slight disconnect in what we are speaking about.

For example, your wiki ref states the following four items as what it is measuring:

"Personal choice rather than collective choice,
Voluntary exchange coordinated by markets rather than allocation via the political process,
Freedom to enter and compete in markets, and
Protection of persons and their property from aggression by others."

{Note these are really are more measures of "personal freedom" than how centrally planned the economy is.}
{Then wiki notes}:
The 2005 report states "When the functions of the minimal state—protection of people and their property from the actions of aggressors, enforcement of contracts, and provision of the limited set of public goods like roads, flood control projects, and money of stable value—are performed well, but the government does little else, a country’s rating on the EFW summary index will be high. Correspondingly, as government expenditures increase and regulations expand, a country’s rating will decline."
{and then wiki continues}:
"In practice, the index measures:
Size of Government: Expenditures, Taxes, and Enterprises
Legal Structure and Security of Property Rights
Access to Sound Money
Freedom to Trade Internationally
Regulation of Credit, Labor, and Business ..."

I agree that this is a reasonable set of thngs to measure PERSONAL freedom and that in Personal freedom few nations excell the USA.

However, it should be clear from my prior posts that I have not been speaking of Personal freedom. I have been speaking of the extent to which the economic decisions are controlled by the government. At the zero end of this range we have the economic system that Anne Rand advocated (never existed) and at the 100% controlled end we have the directed or "command economie's" goal or ideal (also never achieveded).

Concievably, but never in practice, a high level of personal freedom is possible even in a centrally directed economy. I.e the state could allow free speach, free movement, free choices in what one eats, wears, where one lives, (all personal consumption choices with in your budget/ income) etc. but still tell the car factory to make X number of SUVs, Y number of pick up trucks etc. I.e totally state control of the economy* (note that is not necessarily the same as own, in principle) the production and distribution. For example in principle, the state could decide that no SUV were to be sold in city C, only in city B which is far from city C. If you placed great value on driving an SUV (and could afford it) and were in society with high personnel freedom, you could move from city C to city B and buy your SUV.

SUMMARY: What I have been stating is that via the IRS, the Agricultural Deptment, etc. the US government has guided the economic decision very strongly (in contrast to the "free market myth" most Americans believe is the case). This says nothing about the level of personal freedom, which I admit is high in the US. You have not been understanding what I have been saying. That is clear with your reply that documents the high level of personal freedom instead of comments on the extent to which the US economy is controlled or guided by the US government.

PS In similar vein, to saying the US is a very "efficiently planned economy," I sometimes say the US is the "most efficient empire" in history. All prior empires collected taxes from their dominated areas by stationing soldiers and tax collectors in the foreign teritories they dominated. The British in India (or in Colinial 13 states of the USA) for example.
Although the US does occasionally send its army into foreign lands, it does not wish to occupy them permanently (that is the old inefficient, costly way). Instead, the US has for at least 50 years collected tribute from foreign lands (a huge amount) by sending green pieces of paper there instead of troops and tax collectors. - A great advance in the way an empire can be more efficient in collecting tribute from dominated areas.

All I have been saying, in one sentence, is that the US, via very detailed regulations and tax structures has made a great advance in the way a government can be more efficient in running a planned economy. I have NOT been commenting on personal freedoms as you seem to still be misunderstanding.

-----------------
*I admit that this is a terrible system in practice as what happens is you end up with stores that have zero rolls of toilet paper and shelves full of canned beans etc. as was common problem in old USSR. So the second paragraph of wiki is generally accurate in practice, but note it states: "as government expenditures increase and regulations expand,** a country’s rating will decline" and that is my point - the US has far too complex IRS code and regulations in general. My simple progressive IRS code on a 3by5 index card would be much better than the special interest mess the US has now as it distorts normal rational economic decisions.

**Do you not agree that, especially under GWB, government expenditures have rapidly expanded and government decrees/ regulations have even begun to violate the constitution (as even his partially "packed" Surpreme Court has declaired)? I.e. now not only is the US economy very centrally planned, but even the personal freedom index is dropping.

 

They're the same thing. The more centrally planned an economy is, the less personal freedom people have, and vice versa.

No, that doesn't make any sense. It's not possible for people to be free to choose what they buy unless the factories are free to produce what people want. That's like the old saw "you can have any color ford you want, as long as it's black". Similarly, if people are free to enter and compete in markets, there's no way for the government to dictate exactly what will be produced and what it will be sold for.

I don't know why you're so attached to this idea that America is centrally planned. It's a mixed economy that lies closer to the free-market ideal than most, and everyone knows this. Torturing the definition of central planning and pretending that it can somehow coexist with total freedom just makes you look crazy.